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Conservation urged as rainfall fails to materialize

Date Posted: 2009-05-28

It’s the rainy season, but the first ten days have brought little rain, leading Okinawa Prefecture officials to issue calls for water conservation.

After the first ten days of the rainy season, which officially began May 18th, Okinawa’s dams are showing storage rates of 46.6%, well below the level officials consider safe. Their concerns have triggered drought measures committee members to gather and issue a call that “every municipality should reduce water consumption by 5%”.

A drought committee member explains that meaningful water use reductions “means every person should save 15 liters of water every day.” He says there’s little chance the dams will be able to recover enough water to stave off drought problems, given the amount of rainfall now being recorded. One official cited washing cars as an example, calling on people to use little water in the process, using water sprays, then cloths to wipe the cars clean and save water.

Each citizen, the drought measures committee says, should “think about how important water is, and to keep it as a treasure.” The goal, he says, is that every municipality should be strengthening measures for water conservation.